Crop issue? Very emaciated.

[tractor1971]

I need opinions on my 20 week old bantam cochin female. I noticed a month ago that is thin, but she was happy and healthy, with no apparent issues. Few days ago she was so weak she could not stand up straight. She was isolated, and doing better with no specific treatment. She is literally only skin and bone, sleep lots, and has normal poop. Her crop is swollen somewhat bigger than a golf ball, but soft with no substance in it, no hardness anywhere. It does not reduce in size ever. No respiratory symptoms, appetite seem to be fair. No other chickens are showing the same signs. I do not smell any offensive breath, but she is stinky. Tail is drooping. No abnormal movements. I have done a fair bit of reading, but still not sure. It may be "sour crop"?

 

[Clay Valley Farmer]

Have you wormed?

She may have a crop issue, but my guess is that it could be a secondary issue, being so malnurished the crop starts to fail just like other systems. Need to figure out why she is not absorbing the food energy? Is she eating or were other chickens keeping her from feed?

 

[tractor1971]

She is one of the bigger chicks, and were never picked on. I hatched them, and the only other bird they were exposed too, is a healthy call duck. Due to winter, they are not free roaming. I will deworm and see if that makes a difference. Thanks for the reply Clay Valley.

 

[ranchhand]

Perhaps a partially impacted crop? I've never dealt with it, but do a search and see if that's the problem.

Best wishes.

 

[tractor1971]

I milked the crop, and some of the soft content were removed. It was only the food she ate, with nothing else. I do not know what it is suppose to smell like, but it definitely was not pleasant, with a sour smell. May be this is a partial obstructed crop as suggested by Ranchhand. I got some Nystatin, in gave it with 15 ml water in the crop-now we will see.....

 

[ShaggysGirl]

I'm not familiar with it in chickens but I used to breed parrots and sometimes a chick would get sour crop, which this sounds like. I'd give them some yogurt, apple cider vinegar and we did have to use Nystatin too.

 

[tractor1971]

An update on the crop issue as follow-I treated with Nystatin, yoghurt, fasting etc, no improvement. I did crop surgery, removed some solid pieces of shaving, completely emptied the crop, but back to square one again. It took about 1 week, and the crop is large soft, with typical head movement of an impacted crop. Is there any ideas out there? I will cull the chicken, but would really like to find out what is going on....